Эллери Куин - Dutch Shoe Mystery

“Gentlemen, it checked in every particular!”

They looked at each other, each mind probing, analyzing, weighing what it had heard.

The Police Commissioner crossed his legs suddenly. “Go on,” he said. “This is the... the...” He stopped and scratched his blue-stubbled jaw. “I’ll be damned if I can give a name to it. Go on, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery plunged ahead. “The second crime,” he said, staring thoughtfully at the smoldering tip of his cigarette, “was quite a different matter. In attempting to apply the same methods I had used in the first crime, I discovered that success had fled. Whatever I was able to conclude — and it was little enough — led to no specific end.

“In another generalization, it was evident that the two crimes might have been committed by the same criminal or by different ones.

“The first thing I became puzzled about was the unanswerability of the question: if this professionally minded woman I postulated as the murderess of Abigail Doorn had killed Janney also, why did she deliberately duplicate her weapon? That is, why did she kill both by strangling them with the same kind of wire? The murderess was not dull; it would seem to be more to her advantage to use a different weapon in the second crime so that the police would be seeking two murderers. In this way, obscuring the trail. Yet, if she killed both, she purposely made no effort to hide the linking of the crimes. Why? I could find no reason.

“On the other hand, if Janney were killed by a different murderer, the duplication of method would indicate that Janney’s murderer was cleverly attempting to make it appear as if Abby’s murderer were also Janney’s murderer. This was a very pointed possibility.

“I kept an open mind on the problem. Either speculation could be true.

“Besides the seemingly deliberate duplication of method, there were other disturbing factors about the second crime, to not one of which was there a plausible explanation.

“Until the time Dr. Minchen told me about his removal of the filing-cabinet from behind Dr. Janney’s desk — before I reached the Hospital that morning — I was absolutely at sea about the second murder.

“But my knowledge of the filing-cabinet’s very existence, and its original location in Janney’s office, altered everything. It was as significant to the explanation of Janney’s death as the shoes and trousers had been to the explanation of Mrs. Doorn’s death.

“Consider the facts. Janney’s dead face was surprisingly placid, showing a natural expression, unmarked by astonishment, fear, horror — any of the unusual signs of violent death. Yet the position of the blow which first stunned him showed that the murderer must have stood behind him in order to hit him over the cerebellar region of the head! How did the murderer get behind Janney without arousing his suspicions, or at least his apprehension? There was no window behind Janney’s desk to permit the murderer to hit Janney from the outside while leaning over the window-sill; the absence of a window behind Janney’s desk also removed the possibility of a person standing behind Janney with the excuse of looking outside. There is a window on the north wall, looking out over the inner court, but a person standing here could not possibly have delivered the blow.

“As it was, the desk and chair formed the hypotenuse of a triangle, the converging north and east walls being the other two sides. There was hardly room to squeeze behind the desk, let alone get there without the knowledge of the desk’s occupant. And Janney was sitting at his desk when he was killed — no question about that. He had been writing at his manuscript when he was stunned. The ink had trailed off in the middle of a word. Then his murderer not only got behind Janney but got behind Janney with Janney’s knowledge and consent!”

Ellery grinned. “An appalling situation. I was quite put out. There was nothing behind the desk to account for a person’s being there, and being accepted as being there. Yet that the murderer had been there without arousing the slightest responsive emotion on Janney’s part was evident.

“There were two conclusions, however: one, Janney knew the murderer well; two, Janney was aware of the murderer’s presence behind him, and accepted this circumstance without either suspicion or fear.

“Now, until I learned that a filing-cabinet had stood behind the desk, I was so stumped that it made me intellectually ill. But when John Minchen told me... For what reason would explain Janney’s acceptance of the murderer and the murderer’s position? The only object in the corner, I now knew, was the filing-cabinet. It followed incontrovertibly that the filing-cabinet accounted for the murderer’s position behind Janney. Logical?”

“Oh, quite!” burst out Dr. Minchen. Sampson glared at him and he subsided a little sheepishly.

“Thanks, John,” said Ellery dryly, “The next step was inevitable. Fortunately for me, the filing-cabinet was not an ordinary one filled with the usual Hospital data. It was a special, privately owned cabinet which housed perhaps Janney’s most precious and personal documentary possession. The records were case-histories pertinent to the book which Janney was writing with Dr. Minchen. It was only too well-known how passionately Janney guarded these case-histories from those whom he considered outsiders. They were kept under lock and key; no one was allowed to see them. No one, that is to say,” interjected Ellery in a stronger voice, and his eyes burned, “but three people.

“The first was Janney himself. Out for obvious reasons.

“The second was Dr. Minchen, Janney’s co-worker. But Minchen couldn’t have killed Janney because he was not in the Hospital at the time of the murder. He had been with me for part of that morning, and just a few moments before the murder — far too short a time to get to the Hospital and kill his collaborator — he had been with me on Broadway, near 86th Street, talking.

“But was that all?” Ellery took off his pince-nez and began to scrub its lenses. “Not by a long shot, it wasn’t. Even before the murder of Mrs. Doorn I knew that there was some one besides Janney and Minchen who could visit that cabinet with impunity. That some one was not only Dr. Janney’s secretarial assistant and clerical helper on Hospital matters and in his literary activities, she was also a rightful occupant of Janney’s office, having a desk there. Helping Janney continuously on the manuscript, she inevitably had access to that precious file behind Janney. Her, presence in that corner, where she undoubtedly came many times during the day, even while Janney was at work, was normal and taken for granted by Janney!... I am referring, of course, to my third possibility, Lucille Price.”

“Good work,” said Sampson in a surprised voice. The Inspector was regarding Ellery with affection.

“It fitted beautifully!” cried Ellery. “No other person in the Hospital, or outside the Hospital for that matter, could have got behind Dr. Janney under those peculiar circumstances without arousing some expression of suspicion, fear or anger. Janney was unusually jealous of those records, had refused on many occasions to let any one touch them. Dr. Minchen and Lucille Price were the exceptions. Minchen was eliminated. Then Lucille Price was left!”

Ellery agitated his pince-nez. “Conclusion: She was the only possible murderer of Dr. Janney.

“Lucille Price... I chewed that name in my mind with a sudden inspiration. Why, what are Lucille Price’s characteristics? She is a woman, she is professionally connected with the Dutch Memorial Hospital!

“BUT THIS IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF PERSON WHOM I WAS SEEKING AS THE MURDERESS OF ABIGAIL DOORN! Was it conceivable that this innocent-looking and efficient nurse was also the murderess of Mrs. Doorn?”